


right church, wrong pew

by nisakomi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, Fuckbuddies To Lovers, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-23 16:52:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18553867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: Let me tell you something. You can regularly fuck a man without being in love with him, or ever falling in love with him. That's the truth. Sex friends can maintain an intimate relationship where no one develops romantic attachment and everyone parts on good terms.Anyway, that's not what happens in this story.





	right church, wrong pew

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kpopolymfics2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2019) collection. 



> This fic was written for K-Pop Olymfics 2019 as part of Team Canon/AR/Future 2. Olymfics is a challenge in which participants write fics based on prompt sets and compete against other teams of writers, organized by genre. Competition winners are chosen by the readers, so please rate this fic using [this survey](https://forms.gle/MRqg5GsBqz9o7EVb9)!
> 
>    
>  **Prompt:**
> 
>  **Day6 – "Shoot Me"**  
> [lyrics](https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2018/06/day6-shoot-me) **|** [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2X2LdJAIpU) **|** [supplementary](https://www.flickr.com/photos/elstevo13/6134884884/) \- [prompts](https://www.flickr.com/photos/blachswan/14990119679/)
> 
>  
> 
>  **Warning** : Mentions a sixteen year old and seventeen year old having sex.

 

When Junhui lifts his forearm away from his eyes, he’s alone on the bed.

Wonwoo’s standing with his back toward him by the two-drawer nightstand, noiselessly tying off the used condom and wrapping it in a tissue before tossing it into the trash. He yanks three more squares out of the box and loosely folds them before depositing the tissues over Junhui’s stomach, all without meeting Junhui’s gaze.

While Wonwoo’s putting his boxers back on, Junhui wipes himself clean, crumples the tissues in one hand, and uses the other to pull the covers over his still heaving chest. Under the blanket, he brings his knees closer to his chest, lying curled up with only the top half of his face peeking out over the duvet.

“You could stay,” Junhui says, voice muffled by fabric.

Wonwoo turns around to look at him then, the “Hm?” gentle and curious and a reminder of what Wonwoo is like, some of the time, most of the time in the past.

Junhui lifts his chin up and says into the cool hotel room air, “You don’t have to go yet. Jisoo-hyung said they wouldn’t be back until late.”

The lightness in Wonwoo’s eyes flickers, fades. He lets out a quick little huff and resumes pulling on his socks.

By the time Jisoo returns, Junhui has put on pants, lying curled up under the covers, and Wonwoo is long, long gone.

 

 

 

 

⁌ ⁌ ⁌

 

 

 

Junhui hoards xuanhuan novels like a cultivator collecting merits for ascension. Has done so since maybe elementary school. Not all of the writing may be high-brow literature, but who cares? Being swept up in the magic and mythology of gods battling demons and evil spirits summons childhood fantasies of becoming a zither-playing martial artist. The allure of karmic retribution, fighting for righteousness and justice, fated partnerships, and unified family clans never seems to fade.

  
Junhui is this kind of person, it’s no secret, a romantic at heart and in every aspect of his life. Someone who believes that good triumphs over evil, and that love will always find a way.

It may therefore come as a surprise that the first time he and Wonwoo ~~have sex~~ _fuck_ is far from tender or loving or anything resembling a fabled consummation of destined lovers after the dark forces have been vanquished and the world saved.

It goes like this: they had been in the dorms, alone, although the reason why no one was around is a detail that now escapes him. Actually, a lot of the details escape him. Just thinking about the memory dredges up aversion, and Junhui finds his mind immediately searching for something else to recollect instead. He also doesn’t really remember what he was feeling when he came out of the shower, ass cleaned and vaguely prepped, lower half wrapped in an old towel, fingers clutching a tiny zipped-up bag containing _the necessities_.

He remembers opening the door and seeing Wonwoo sitting with legs folded on the furthest lower bunk, the angular shadows cast by Wonwoo’s bones, thin frame appearing even scrawnier without any clothing to cover. Junhui thinks he might have questioned what they were doing in that moment, but when he thinks on it further, that thought seems like it’s been added since to the memory, and not true to the moment. They had talked about what they were going to do, Junhui had prepared, he wasn’t in it for the romance.

There _was_ no romance.

Wonwoo had a nice face, smooth skin, lean muscle, a low-pitched voice, and no appeal to Junhui. It wasn’t like he couldn’t see anything nice about Wonwoo, but when they sat beside each other on the subway ride home, Junhui could quietly read about wuxia characters on his phone. It wasn’t like when Hansol would hug him sometimes and he’d feel his entire insides turn to mush, the coherence taken right out of his speech. It wasn’t like with Mingming—

So that’s how it was. They were just gonna do it.

Wonwoo’s face had been expressionless when Junhui locked the door behind him, stayed expressionless while Junhui slowly took off his towel, laid it across the mattress, climbed onto the bed entirely naked except for the sweep of his bangs covering one eye. The way Wonwoo was observing passively made it seem like he was here to complete an assignment rather than to enjoy anything pleasant, and maybe in some ways Junhui was too.

“Can I…?” Junhui had said, and Wonwoo had looked him in the eye without any feeling, looked away only when Junhui’s hand palmed his soft cock. He never did really reply, not when Junhui squeezed out lube, not when Junhui rolled a condom over him. There had only been two indications of life other than him getting hard: one, the sharp inhale when Junhui had brushed his thumb over the head, two, the squeeze around Junhui’s elbow, grip tight to the point of painful.

Partially because his hand was already covered in lube, Junhui prepped himself. He wasn’t sure Wonwoo could do it, or would do it, and it seemed easier than teaching him when there was so much else to do. Junhui had never thought of sex as a long checklist before.

Wonwoo asked, “In here?” in a tone that suggested he could not believe that his dick was going to go where Junhui’s fingers had been, even as Junhui could feel the tip of the rubber brushing against his skin. He’d had to fight back a laugh because it had tickled and because the situation had been so oddly amusing. Somehow he’d managed to guide Wonwoo inside him, slowly. Wonwoo wasn’t particularly big, but it had been a while and it took Junhui some getting used to before he’d let Wonwoo do what he will.

That’s probably the best way to describe it.

At one point, Wonwoo started to say something along the lines of, “You’re very—” but he never finished the thought, and Junhui never bothered to ask. There was some fucking, for a loose definition of the term, and a few minutes later Wonwoo came, and Junhui couldn’t remember if he’d gotten hard at all throughout the entire process. He must have, because he remembered Wonwoo making some motion to help after Junhui had helped him take off the condom, showing Wonwoo had to tie it off without making a mess, reminding him to wrap it up in something for discretion’s sake.

After holding his hand through every little thing, Junhui had shaken his head at the offer. “I’ll handle it.”

And that was how Junhui took Jeon Wonwoo’s gay sex virginity. They hadn’t even debuted yet.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

“Jun-ah, wake up.”

Junhui sits up immediately, shoving off the unfamiliar thick hotel covers. The room is dark, curtains blocking off the outside sunlight, if any.

“You okay?”

“Huh?” Junhui blinks. Even after rubbing at his eyes, the lack of light means he can’t focus well on Jisoo’s face.

“You were really quiet last night, and slept so early. And normally you’re the first to wake up, so I was surprised you were still asleep when I got up.”

Junhui squints down at his phone. He hadn’t set an alarm before falling asleep, and didn’t have the energy or will to get out of bed at all after he’d warmed himself a spot amidst the abundance of pillows. “I’m okay. Didn’t mean to sleep so long,” Junhui says sheepishly. His joints crack when he stretches, the muscles in his back taut from his weird sleeping position.

“Try not to get sick,” Jisoo says. “That’s not fun for anyone on tour. Nap if you need to.”

“Ah, thanks.” He offers what he hopes is a comforting smile when he steps past Jisoo to the bathroom.

He’s not sick. Heartsick, maybe, but that’s not something cured by sleep.

To prove that he’s doing just fine, Junhui takes sixteen photos of himself in the bathroom mirror and makes Jisoo help choose the best one to send to Junhui’s mother before she goes to bed.

 

 

 

 

⁌ ⁌ ⁌

 

 

 

They started because they were both alone.

Junhui had not been lying in bed contemplating the heavens that night, or reading a xuanhuan novel on his phone with the covers over his head. Perhaps if he had, things would have gone differently. Or perhaps they would have ended up like this all the same.

He was sat, late at night, at the dining table, cleared of food and dirty dishes, staring down at the Korean workbook with eyes glazed over. He learned some of the material in class earlier in the morning, but then they’d done eight hours of dance practice after everyone else had gotten back from school and he had nothing left to spare on homework. Because he hadn’t been focused on studying, the blur that passed by caught his attention, but Mingyu was gone before Junhui could ask what he was sneaking out for.

“Girlfriend,” Wonwoo had supplied without looking up from the book he was reading.

Junhui, who whipped his head around at the sudden sound of someone’s voice, had forgotten he’d been sitting on the couch.

“Oh.” He wasn’t sure that was information he was supposed to know.

“We’re supposed to cover for him if any of the managers ask.”

“Okay,” Junhui said, not knowing how. He probably wouldn’t be asked anyway.

“It’s easier for them.”

Junhui, who was thinking about managers and how to lie to them to not get punished, asked, “What?” with true confusion.

“Hooking up with girls,” Wonwoo had said, followed not long thereafter by, “Have you…since Mingming?”

“What?” Junhui asked again, frozen in his seat. “What? No? What?”

“So, how about it?”

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

Though he hadn’t understood this at the time, Junhui knows now that there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. He thinks maybe he was feeling both. Maybe that explains why he developed such an attachment to Wonwoo after they started fucking. Maybe he isn’t really in love with his sex friend. Maybe he’s—

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

Junhui is in love with his sex friend.

 

 

 

 

⁌ ⁌ ⁌

 

 

 

He would like to pin this one on Mingming.

Since Mingming’s departure, Junhui has pinned a lot of stuff on him actually. Adding ‘made me fall in love with my fuckbuddy’ to the list hardly expands the pile.

Mingming had been the one who forgot to lock the door. And then, to be fair to him, Wonwoo had been the one who burst into the bathroom with only half a knock. To be fair to Wonwoo, they walked in on each other peeing all the time because there was only one bathroom, and it wasn’t like anyone saw something new as a result of it. There would have been no way for Wonwoo to know that he’d be walking in on something a little bit more explicit, and so at the end of the day with all fairness considered, that means it really was just Mingming’s fault that Wonwoo stumbled upon them while Mingming’s whole dick was inside Junhui’s ass.

Again to Wonwoo’s credit, the door was shut closed again pretty fast, and the whole incident never mentioned again until that fateful night some months before debut when Wonwoo and Junhui were sitting in the dorms and Wonwoo proposed that they do what Junhui and Mingming had been doing because there was no one else to pursue that kind of relationship with easily in their lives.

It was just sex.

Their first go at it, Junhui had thought they could ease into it with some kissing first, but as Junhui leaned in, Wonwoo had turned his face away uncomfortably.

Junhui had laughed.

“We don’t have to,” he had said, because it was awkward enough and early enough that they could just stop and pretend it never happened, like Junhui had initially hoped would be the outcome of being caught having sex by his groupmate.

“It’s not that,” Wonwoo said, looking down at the tent in his boxers.

“Okay.”

And then Wonwoo had bravely wrapped his fingers around Junhui and shakily gotten him off, and something about exchanging handjobs really sort of sealed the deal on the whole fuckbuddies thing, like a sex handshake, if you will.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

After dallying in the bathroom for so long, Junhui and Jisoo are last to arrive to breakfast. The others, in varying states of preparedness for the flight to their next destination, are loud and rowdy enough to draw inquiring stares from other hotel patrons. That or the sheer number of them, plus managers, attracts curiosity. No one particularly notices them arriving late and slipping into line to pick up items from the breakfast buffet, the food options greasy and foreign to Junhui, even though eggs are universal and Jisoo does his best to explain.

The sound of plates clattering down against the square, mahogany table seems to jolt Jihoon slightly awake, and he lifts his head up just enough that it’s no longer level with his bowl of cereal.

“Morning,” Jisoo greets with some amusement.

Jihoon nods, and his nose dips dangerously close to the milk.

At some point one of their managers comes and gives them a run-down of the day’s itinerary. For the most part, however, the three of them sitting at the table eat mostly in silence. Well, Jihoon sleeps instead of eating but somehow manages to vanish all of his little whole grain rings while Junhui isn’t looking.

“So you’re planning on carrying that in your hands all the way through security and customs?!” Soonyoung’s voice carries on a good day, but with it being this quiet, of course Junhui catches the question.

He turns his head toward the source, lifting his eyes up over the top of Jihoon’s head to see Soonyoung gesturing at the mound of stuff piled between some tables. Beyond him, Wonwoo’s making his morning face, a dark, dreadful sort of expression that isn’t an indication of threat but seems murderous all the same. Junhui looks away before he can see Wonwoo’s reaction, poking at his eggs, which are soggy and made wetter by the fruit slices mixed onto his plate. He shovels all of this into his mouth.

Junhui has, by his own will or not, been carting Wonwoo’s spare gaming keyboard halfway around the world. He’ll likely be the one to lug it all the way back home as well.

By the time Wonwoo finishes breakfast, stands and slings his messenger bag over his shoulder, Junhui’s already tucked the clunky device into his own pack. He hangs back with his own things, poking at Jihoon every so often to keep him awake enough to stay standing.

Wonwoo reaches around for his keyboard, notices that it’s missing, and doesn’t even blink in surprise. He looks around, not a trace of panic in his eyes when their gazes meet. Junhui tilts his head, and Wonwoo narrows his eyes for a moment before calmly telling Soonyoung, “I just keep everything in one bag. Too lazy to carry more.”

Junhui’s not sure what that makes him.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Soonyoung yells as soon as the check in process is complete.

Only half of them are milling about in the hotel lobby. By some weird planning, the thirteen of them had been split up onto two flights, and that means those of them on the earlier flight get a few hours to relax or sightsee.

“Jun-hyung, are you coming?” Chan asks, wiggling out of his backpack to put on a light jacket.

The weather outside seems pleasant, and the temperature had been mild as they drove through the city to get from the airport to the hotel. Minghao looks over at them with his hands in the pockets of a jacket, a camera hanging loosely around his neck. They could take photos of tall buildings and pretty gardens, they’ve travelled all this way, Junhui has two phones with maximum storage for a reason.

“No,” he says, “I’ll rest here.”

Wonwoo’s stuff that wouldn’t fit in his carry-on bag are in Junhui’s carrier. The city sights will have to wait until another time.

By the time the other half of the band arrives at hotel, the skies are swept with a deep indigo brush, and a glow of orange light peeks over clouds that dangle over the water.

“It’s not the ocean,” Wonwoo tells him. “We’re in the middle of the continent. It’s a freshwater lake.”

“I’ve never seen a lake this big before,” Junhui says without turning. “At least not in person?” The view of the water from the hotel window extends all the way to the horizon, where the line separating the earth from the sky becomes harder and harder to determine as the evening settles in.

“The closest land mass is actually an island. If you wanted to cross the whole lake you’d be travelling the same distance it takes to get from Busan to Daegu.” This explanation Wonwoo offers instead of a thank you to Junhui for hauling his baggage for him over a distance more than twenty times that.

Junhui hums. He doesn’t ask Wonwoo why they’re rooming together again tonight, the same way he doesn’t ask Wonwoo why they don’t room together on nights that they’re apart.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

Although the spot under the pillows had been cool when Junhui first shoved his hands to grab at the sheets, after Wonwoo’s thorough go at recreational activities with him, the whole bed is in disarray and everywhere is hot to the touch. The second bed in the room offers an obvious reprieve, but both of them are too lazy to lift more than their hands to shove the covers away.

Junhui will classify this as a good day, although it’s technically already tomorrow, as emphasized by the red LED lights from the hotel clock radio illuminating the current time, well into three in the morning. It hadn’t promised to be a good day, not with the night prior, or with their flight delays, but after Wonwoo had taken a shower and they’d both eaten dinner, a rather tranquil mood settled around them.

Even now, as Junhui stares up into the mostly darkened hotel room, body weighing down into the mattress, head tucked up against Wonwoo’s shoulder, calmness sweeps over him in gentle lapping waves. Of course, that could just be Wonwoo gently petting his hair, but the effect remains, dragging him unwillingly to the land of sleep.

He dreams of living on a huge body of water, no longer sure if it’s the ocean or a lake after Wonwoo changed his understanding of the sea. There’s no ship, just a small dinghy that he lies in, feeling the rise and fall of the water, the drop of his stomach which settles briefly for a moment, before sinking again as the bow dips.

When he wakes, not three hours later, Junhui’s face is pressed into the firm contours of Wonwoo’s bare chest, and the covers are draped messily over their waists. His head pounds, his stomach churns, his ass is sore. But Junhui’s far from unhappy. There are bad days too. Of course there are. Junhui checks them off mentally, too scared to put these thoughts to a calendar. That would make it too real, and he’s not interested in keeping track. For now, it’s a good day, like Chicago had been, like Saitama before that. Dallas might have been bad, but it’s Toronto already, so it’s good, it’s good, it’s not at all bad.

 

 

 

 

⁌ ⁌ ⁌

 

 

 

Junhui has a lot of difficulty thinking about his relationship with Wonwoo. For the most part, he doesn’t. When pressed, he’ll think about it using non-specific terms, ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘it’. What do you call someone who you’re coworkers with first, and then sex partners, and then friends?

The funny thing is, when they embarked on their journey as friends with benefits, they weren’t really friends. There was a brief moment when Junhui thought they would become friends as a result – the word ‘friend’ was right there in the term, at least in Mandarin anyway. But other than speaking about when they would sneak off for some sexual release, or the best position for a blowjob that didn’t interfere with breathing mechanics, they barely spoke or interacted. Their being friends with benefits without any friendship definitely made keeping ‘it’ secret easier.

It wasn’t until weeks, maybe months later, when they spent more time really working together, not just in the same practice room after Wonwoo finished school, that Wonwoo acknowledged Junhui’s existence in any significant way.

But it was _weird_. By that point they knew each other’s dicks intimately, yet not much else. Touched mouths, but definitely hadn’t touched hearts. It’s utterly crazy to think about it now, but back then, Wonwoo had been incredibly bad at sex. Junhui struggles to remember a time when closing his eyes to think about something to masturbate to didn’t mean imagining the feeling of Wonwoo’s lips wrapped around his cock, but Wonwoo used to suck at sucking dick. Not enough suction, too much teeth, gagging, you name it.

But they worked on ‘it’. Wonwoo was offered friendly advice, received some (Junhui was pretty sure) fantastic blowjobs, fucked, got fucked, and now could effectively keep him begging for hours. And over time, Wonwoo traded book recommendations, got Junhui to play new games with him, ate regular meals with, and hung out with Junhui enough that they could reasonably predict each other’s opinions before anyone had to express one aloud.

So, ‘it’ eventually evolved into something like friends with benefits, who happened to work and live with each other. Sometimes they had sex. Sometimes they hung out. Sometimes both. Yeah, things were like that.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

The weather in Seoul is surly and unpredictable by the time the tour fully wraps up, all of them exhausted and unable to parse the time or date. It’s not even close to as cold as it can get in this part of Korea yet, and Junhui is already missing the summer, which seems to have gone by in the blind of an eye because of all the flights and travelling. There were things he’d wanted to do this year, like pick up piano again, or sit down to properly watch that really popular Yang Mi drama, but upon reflection, for most of the summer months they hadn’t even been in the country.

On a clearer day, while Jihoon’s directing the vocal unit members in the studio, Wonwoo comes to find Junhui sprawled over the couch letting his brain leak out of his ears in an effort to recuperate from the physical exertion of all the months prior.

“You’re not busy, right?” Wonwoo says.

Junhui looks pointedly at his phone, he kind of is busy, even if he kind of isn’t.

“Put on a coat,” Wonwoo says, “Let’s go.”

It’s not a question, but even if it were, Junhui wouldn’t say no.

The tree-lined paths of the park Wonwoo takes him to are dusted in a layer of fallen leaves. On either side, bright reds and yellows and orange dot the soon-to-be sleeping trees, framed in light and glowing from the cast of the sun. There are great artists who have written poems to describe these moments in fall, but Junhui likens the scene to novels about cultivation. A still lake (a _lake_ lake, where you can see the edges all the way around), crimson foliage, intricate pagoda in the distance, a leaf blown into the air by the wind before drifting slowly down to create soft ripples in the water. If Junhui closes his eyes and concentrates, he can hear sombre flute melodies, bare without any accompaniment and all the more haunting.

Junhui doesn’t ask why they’re here, although he’s thinking on the question. Wonwoo isn’t someone who likes to go out without reason, much less amble through nature without a goal. Not unless they’re on vacation, anyway, far from other people or internet or easier sources of entertainment. While thinking about this, Wonwoo stops suddenly, and Junhui has to double back toward him.

He’s holding a camera in his hand, nothing super fancy, but an actual camera instead of his phone. It’s the kind of artsy thing Minghao likes to enjoy, but Junhui has three phones with maximum storage for a reason, and that’s so he can take as many photos as he can without a camera. Besides, it’s a lot harder to take photos of himself without the front-facing view option.

Above them, more leaves spin away from their branches, dropping down, providing ample ammunition for the little kids running around, chased by exasperated parents try to tell them not to touch anything dirty. Junhui tilts his head up toward the tops of the trees, and hears shutters go off.

“What? It’s artsy,” Wonwoo says defensively, when Junhui shoots him a look.

“The trees are very pretty this time of year,” Junhui allows. He pulls out his own phone camera to take pictures of his own. Maybe one he can use as his background later.

He doesn’t get that many shots in before Wonwoo’s manhandling him in front of a particularly large tree. “Stand here.”

Junhui stands obediently and poses naturally with his phone. There’s a few more clicks, and Wonwoo busying himself with moving Junhui’s arms, his shoulders, the direction his torso is facing, the angle of his head.

“Are you done now?” Junhui asks with amusement, once Wonwoo stops poking him to scan through the photos he’s already taken.

Wonwoo shrugs. “The camera connects to wifi, so I can send the pictures to you later.”

It strikes Junhui then, that the afternoon could count as a date. It’s not, but if it were, he’d kiss Wonwoo under the shade of the maple grove. He imagines Wonwoo would kiss back.

They stop for hot coffee before heading back, Wonwoo uploading the photos to his phone while they use the café wifi, and on the bus ride home, Junhui gets a message from his mother, appreciative of the colors in the backgrounds of the photos he’s sent over.

 _Why are you always wearing the same outfit when you’re outside?_ , she asks over WeChat.

Junhui laughs to himself. _I have to try and make sure no one recognizes me_.

“What’s so funny?” Wonwoo asks.

Junhui shows him his phone screen, even if Wonwoo won’t be able to read the characters. He explains, “My mom thinks I only own one pair of pants. Or, she wonders why I only wear one pair of pants when we get so many fan gifts. I was wearing the same outfit when I asked Minghao to take photos of me in Malaysia last month, and when Jisoo took photos of me in Canada two months before that.”

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

Everything is fine until nothing is.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

The next morning Junhui wakes up with a stiffy, tries to get Wonwoo alone in the bathroom, only to have his arm shaken off and get glared at. After he comes back from being verbally beaten up in the studio by Soonyoung’s meticulous attention to detail, Wonwoo elbows Junhui away from the dinner table.

He thinks it’s because he’s sweaty, but when he returns to that seat after a nice hot shower, Wonwoo physically gets up and walks away.

So it’s a bad day. Some days are bad days. Some days Junhui returns to the world where it’s just him and his phone and his xuanhuan novels and playing hours of _Kings of Glory_ , interspersed with new cooking adventures in the kitchen, plus practicing, whether that’s singing or dancing.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

But then, a week later, although Wonwoo’s stopped glaring at him, the bad days are worse. Instead of looking angry, now he’s just cold and aloof, which is somehow scarier. He either ignores Junhui or gives him blunt, one-word answers.

Even though Junhui avoids confrontation and talking like the plague, he ends up asking Wonwoo, one night when they’re the last ones in the studio though not by Wonwoo’s choice, “What did I do this time to make you so angry at me?”

Junhui usually does not ask this question out loud. It’s not because Wonwoo isn’t often angry or frustrated with Junhui, but because usually Junhui can figure out a way to get Wonwoo to forgive him, or to realize what he’s done to make amends, or Wonwoo’s moodiness eventually peters out after a day or two. This time around, no matter how he wrings his hands over the afternoon in the park, he can’t figure out where he went wrong.

His curt, “Nothing,” cuts right through Junhui’s ribs, so deep the following, “Stop being fussy, Jun,” stabs straight into his heart.

What nothing means – because in this case nothing means something – what it means is that Wonwoo doesn’t care enough to want them to patch things up. Junhui can take the criticism, but the apathy, the apathy isn’t something he can work on or deflect.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

For the next three nights, when he goes to bed, wrapped up in swaths of blankets, an unrelenting chill frosts Junhui’s bones. The kind of bitter coldness that comes from knowing the only ones really listening to you are the faraway galaxies and planets and stars, whether or not you have anything important to say. And there’s no one you’d want to hear what you have to say anyway.

After three days of lying awake like that, Junhui finally tells Wonwoo, “I think we should stop having sex.”

Wonwoo shrugs. He shrugs and says, “It’s not like we’ve fucked at all in the last month.” And then he shrugs again and says, “It was just sex.”

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

“Do you remember, a year ago, when we were like, hey so the Philippines are next, do we have visas for that?” Minghao asks.

Junhui remembers, and he thinks he knows why Minghao is thinking about this now, weeks after they’d actually been able to perform in Manila for this year’s tour.

They’re sitting in a McDonalds with hats drawn low. That’s what they’d been doing in 2016 too, while the others were performing. Stuck in a different country because there was no way they’d get through customs, sitting with unease at their unexpected break, and shooting the breeze over fries and soda.

“Yeah,” Junhui says, and then takes a bite of his burger.

“I’m not sure how you keep conning me into eating junk food like this,” Minghao says. “But this year’s tour really was so different from the last one.”

“How so?”

“Well, other than the fact that we had visas this year, you’ve stopped looking at Wonwoo like he hung the moon and stars in the sky.”

Junhui glances around and mumbles quietly in Mandarin, “We stopped fucking.”

Minghao stares at him. “I did not know you were ever fucking.”

Oops. But the secrecy doesn’t matter anymore, Junhui supposes. “That’s good. It wasn’t supposed to get in the way of the group.”

“Did he know you were in love with him?” Minghao asks bluntly, tilting his head downward toward his fingers, steepled together in front of him. This is something very Minghao. The directness – straight to the point, no nonsense, what’s the point of false niceties? Wonwoo could be direct to, except when it came to explaining why he got pissed off at Junhui, whenever he got pissed off at Junhui.

“No.”

“Why did you like him so much anyway?”

Junhui shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Minghao takes a slurp of his cider, shakes the nearly empty cup, and then puts it down with a rather final thud. “That’s okay. It’s good. I think you seem more at ease now that you’re over it.” Minghao observes him, carefully, like he’s gauging for a reaction.

Junhui doesn’t give him one.

 

 

 

 

⁌ ⁌ ⁌

 

 

 

The first time Junhui thought to himself that he was catching feelings, Seventeen was halfway through Mansae promotions, and not nearly as known as they are now. Gaining traction maybe, but midnight runs to the convenience store were definitely still possible. They spent more time trying to teach people their names and title tracks than they did awkwardly declining autographs or photos with strangers while trying to get a snack or just stocking up on toilet paper.

Junhui had been on the way to make a late night convenience store run to grab hot sauce because his stash was running out, dressed sloppily in a pair of warn jeans and an oversized hoodie, with the drawstrings tugged tight around his head. He’d nearly bowled over Wonwoo in his haste out the door.

“Jun-ah!” Wonwoo called sharply.

He’d been expecting some admonishment, a warning to be more careful, maybe to dress more. Usually Wonwoo didn’t care about things like that, but their friendship had developed to the point that Wonwoo would painstakingly explain Korean words and grammar Junhui hadn’t yet grasped, or explain rules of games he hadn’t yet been exposed to.

“Huh?” Junhui had said, turning around sharply and nearly knocking his elbow sideways into the wall.

Wonwoo reached forward then, steadied him, and pulled him closer by the wrist.

He didn’t say anything, but started reaching toward Junhui’s pants. When Junhui looked down, he saw Wonwoo’s fingers carefully tucking in the inner fabric into their respective pockets, pushing the out-turned pale blue back where it belonged. They were standing so close you’d be hard pressed to slot a hand between their chests, and Junhui let out a shaky breath at the proximity.

Then, without a word, Wonwoo took a step back, and looked at him blankly. It might have been a very neutral expression, but Junhui felt warmed by it all the same.

In that moment.

Right there.

When Xu Minghao asked why he liked Wonwoo, Junhui might have told him he didn’t know. But the truth is, since that instant in time, Junhui could list these things ceaselessly.

Wonwoo’s voice. His encyclopaedic knowledge of the world, and eagerness to explain things that few other people ever thought about. The way sometimes he’d hold Junhui’s hand when they were doing something that required no hand holding, and would squeeze it periodically, as if to affirm that Junhui hadn’t floated away while he wasn’t paying attention. Wonwoo’s scent, his habit of leaning close whenever Junhui wanted to show him something on the phone. Wonwoo telling him to wait so that he could reach the end of whatever it was he was doing in order to turn his full attention to Junhui. His alien metaphors, inventive stories, his intent on making wordplay jokes even if Junhui sometimes didn’t understand them, and always explaining them afterward even if that meant the joke was no longer funny. Wonwoo’s laugh. He laughed all the time when Junhui did stuff, even if no one else did. Wonwoo trying new things at his goading, even if he hated it, he never let that show on his face.

Even that was skimming the surface, but there was no way he could have answered Minghao like that in the restaurant, whether it had been burgers and cola or steak and wine.

When Junhui thinks about Wonwoo, it’s this: “Junnie, here, try this,” and Wonwoo serving him kindness on a plate.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

Mere days before their comeback, Junhui nearly shits himself when he accidentally brushes past Wonwoo in the hallway on the way to the bathroom, after Wonwoo’s come back from getting water. Junhui thinks he’s gonna need to apologize, gets ready to do so, but Wonwoo just elbows him back like they’re habitually playfighting, and doesn’t yell at Junhui to be careful like had in the weeks prior.

After that, things between them thaw out.

Junhui almost forgets that they’d once regularly fucked and have since stopped fucking.

Prior to this, the longest they’d gone without having sex had been that time when Wonwoo had gone back home for three weeks after he’d had to go to the hospital for his stomach problems. When Wonwoo returned, they’d had the best sex of Junhui’s whole life, though, so he doesn’t ever truly forget – only nearly.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

“Do you think we can eat these?” Junhui asks. He doesn’t mean to direct the question at anyone in particularly, rather the room at large. But when he looks up, it’s only Wonwoo nearby, looking at Junhui fawning over his giant jar of cheese puffs, previously a photoshoot prop for their calendar photos.

“By yourself?” Wonwoo snorts.

“That’s no fun! It’d be better if we share, so you can try too.”

“Alright,” Wonwoo says. He takes the few steps over to sit cross-legged beside Junhui, and the two of them toss cheese puffs into each other’s mouths, up high to see if they can catch them, and at each other because it’s always funny when food ends up somewhere it’s not supposed to be.

“You’re terrible at this,” Wonwoo informs him, after a cheese puff lands over Junhui’s eyelid instead.

“Hey!” Junhui protests. “You’re not that great at it either?”

Wonwoo shrugs. “Everyone knows I have terrible coordination.”

It’s without a doubt the friendliest they’ve been since they’d stopped with the benefits part of their relationship. Later, when they take the group photo for the main page, Wonwoo slots himself against Junhui, leaning against him with his whole body. Junhui wonders if Wonwoo can hear Junhui’s heart beating out of his chest. When Wonwoo looks at him with this soft fondness Junhui hasn’t seen in weeks, he’s pretty sure everyone can hear the badump-badump.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

Junhui crawls into bed the night after they finish wrapping up that shoot with his heart in his mouth. There is something very painful about being in love with your ex-fuckbuddy and having him touch you like it’s nothing. He’s remembering the weight of Wonwoo against him when his phone buzzes.

_Come. It’s kind of an emergency._

Junhui’s pretty sure Wonwoo’s gotten the wrong number at first, but he types, _where???_ , and Wonwoo sends him a map back.

_Don’t tell anyone else, Jun-ah._

So Junhui’s brain is coming up with a million different things that could have happened on his train ride to the river bank, a place he hasn’t been since they were early on in their careers.

Wonwoo is sitting by himself with his whole face covered up, but Junhui can recognize his frame and posture even under the cover of darkness.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh? Yeah. It wasn’t me, I mean, the emergency. It was Bohyuk. He wanted me to talk him out of running away from the army.”

Junhui stares. “That doesn’t sound…”

“—Oh, he wasn’t really going to run away.” Wonwoo sighs. “I think he called me because he wasn’t expecting me to go looking for him because I’m always busy.”

Junhui stares at Wonwoo some more.

Wonwoo turns to look at him, one hand on his own wrist, curled into himself. “So I think that’s why I messaged you. Something like, to see if you cared too.”

“What,” Junhui says. “Of course I care. Anyone would have come if you sent a message like that, you could have called Seungcheol-hyung. Or Jeonghan, or Soonyoung, or Mingyu, or—”

“Stop it! Why would you bring them up? Who cares if they care or not, stop talking about people, this is why—” Wonwoo breaks off suddenly.

Junhui’s breath catches. “Wonwoo,” he says slowly. “Why did we,” and here he almost says _break up_ but he catches himself just in time. “Why did things between us end?”

“You were the one who said you thought we should stop.”

Junhui knows that in his favorite books about love and loss and friendship and animosity, people can end up waiting dozens of years, or even centuries, before the story offers redemption, or a happy ending. His lifespan, however, is strictly human. He doesn’t have centuries, or decades. He might not even have years.

Junhui leans in, and instead of turning away uncomfortably, Wonwoo kisses his mouth.

 

 

 

 

⁌ ⁌ ⁌

 

 

 

It was never just sex. Not between them.

 

 

 

 

⁍ ⁍ ⁍

 

 

 

“Junhui’s going to be my model,” Wonwoo says to the camera. “We’re gonna have a photoshoot. It’s a competition between us versus Mingyu and Myungho.”

Junhui wants to tug him aside and whisper about his embarrassment, but Wonwoo isn’t having it. He doesn’t even stop when Junhui makes weird jokes to try to diffuse his own awkwardness.

“See? Look at this picture. This is why. It’s because he can make any photo look like art.”

“Stop it,” Junhui whines.

“Why? You’re good looking, Junnie.”

“Shut up,” Junhui says. “Just shoot the photos so we can get this over with.”

So they can go home. And have sex. And kiss and date and talk, because ‘it’… It's not a romance novel, but it is their reality.

 

 

⦾⦾⦾

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Six days before I started writing this fic, I told saphtaff to tell me not to do the thing knowing that I would still do the thing. She told me not to do the thing. And then I did the thing. AND THEN she reassured me that it was okay to do the thing… I love you TT_______TT 
> 
> A million thanks to the whole mod team for waiting on me, to mod **m** for letting me flail about and giving me reasons to smile, and most especially to the wonderful, amazing, heaven-sent mod **b** for literally offering me tea and biscuits and only ever caring about my well-being. Y'all are the bestest. Thank you also to everyone who sprinted with me at any point in the past week, to Day6 for giving us this truly great track, and to my team for writing some fics that really lit a fire under my ass.
> 
> Lastly, to quote the prompt, it's never an easy thing to stand in front of you, but thank you to every reader for giving this a shot!
> 
> ETA: i rly wanna thank miss bee moddir for giving me this pinch hit even tho i was already kinda late with my original assignment…your faith in me is super appreciated TT and miia thank you for not banning me despite being a regular problem child. 
> 
> this isn’t quite the whole fic i envisioned when i realized the day after i sent in my prompt choices that shoot me is a great song, but it’s vaguely close? ofc i will be back with more wonhui in the future that is truer to the story (or stories actually) i wanna write. love and kisses


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